HelloThis is a general question as my forum has one member that has now registered for a third time. He uses nearly the same user name but uses multiple names using hotmail.The give away is that he advertises the same website.

I have not banned his previous registrations as he has never logged on after registering.I have e-mailed him for an explanation for multiple memberships.

Has anyone else had members registering multiple times ? Could this be a way of trolling or spamming ?

Thanks for the advice,Apologises for the reply in less than 24 hrs. I have banned the member & the e-mail address, unfortunately I have not caught this member on line yet. Therefore I am unable to ban the isp but will keep an eye on this chap.I have also done a running banner warning on duplicate memberships.

what you should do is set up a introduction forum.this will be a forum where all members must post and introduce their self in order to gain access to the rest of the forum.

This way you always have a post from all members, and can check for multi accounts.

You can also set up a group called members group, have it set for when a member makes his or hers fist post, it will automatically add them to the members group,thus giving them permissions to the rest of the forum.

You will have to set the permissions for the group as you wish.. but once again, this will ensure you can check a ip from any member, and if they dont post and say hello on the intro board, well then they simply will not have access to the forums

and you can still have permissions for the forums of new members to view and read what you have on the site, they just wont be able to post anywhere else until they post and introduce their self on the introduction board, Catch my drift

and this is something you will observer, when you get a new member and they post and say hi, then you know to check the ip right then and there, and you will see right away if they have another account or not

To stop a member useing the same ip address to make a 2nd /3rd 4 account follow this really easy stepStep 1

Go to ACP >>

General >>

Forum

scroll down to Security..

Step 2

In Security Administration scroll down the page until you see IP address accounts creation limit, for each 24 hours :type 1 in the box and save

That should stop the member using the same ip address for 24hr's

Hope this will help you out just a bit

EDIT: Most sites have a ip scanner system on them and it will flag up the members that have the same ip address and tell the admin's the ip and the names of the userssystem will be like this And the member would not need to post at all before you see this info.it would only work if the ip is the same thou

To stop a member useing the same ip address to make a 2nd /3rd 4 account follow this really easy stepStep 1

Go to ACP >>

General >>

Forum

scroll down to Security..

Step 2

In Security Administration scroll down the page until you see IP address accounts creation limit, for each 24 hours :type in the maximum number = 255 in the box and save

That should stop the member using the same ip address for a long time

Hope this will help you out just a bit

EDIT: Most sites have a ip scanner system on them and it will flag up the members that have the same ip address and tell the admin's the ip and the names of the userssystem will be like this And the member would not need to post at all before you see this info.it would only work if the ip is the same thou

@kirk wrote:what you should do is set up a introduction forum.this will be a forum where all members must post and introduce their self in order to gain access to the rest of the forum.

This way you always have a post from all members, and can check for multi accounts.

You can also set up a group called members group, have it set for when a member makes his or hers fist post, it will automatically add them to the members group,thus giving them permissions to the rest of the forum.

You will have to set the permissions for the group as you wish.. but once again, this will ensure you can check a ip from any member, and if they don't post and say hello on the intro board, well then they simply will not have access to the forums

and you can still have permissions for the forums of new members to view and read what you have on the site, they just wont be able to post anywhere else until they post and introduce their self on the introduction board, Catch my drift

and this is something you will observer, when you get a new member and they post and say hi, then you know to check the ip right then and there, and you will see right away if they have another account or not

Oh I think that's some very solid advice Kirk gave. I was at a forum that had an Intro thread. It kept us a bit safer, from a bully clique that would like to have infiltrated and established a chapter at our forum We managed to keep them pretty much out, just by requiring some ID basically. (it really wasn't that invasive to the registrant, because people kind of like to take stupid little quizzes, so we presented a list of questions which seemed like nothing to them, but they were designed to reveal if they happened to be affiliated with our "foes")

I also like that Kirk mentioned they only get into the "members" group (and so all permissions) if they've agreed being checked a little. (Only a bad guy really will say no to being checked, usually).

I really wanted to note here that I had a spammer post an ad that I would rather not have in our Game area. But we offer "free classified ads", so any member, actually anyone, is entitled to advertise their business. So as an administrator I think it very important to think a little less subjectively than we normally do in life. I thus decided he was a member (even if only technically, yep, he had to join to be able to post) and all members can advertise. So I moved his ad to the right place for those to go, and pm;d him that I had done that, and welcome. And it made me feel good! Because I don't know, it just felt good to be nice, instead of vindictive at a wrong doer, like so often we do.. I gave him equal treatment as any other member, because you know what he really does have a business he wants to advertise! so... (of course we'll never see him again, because he really was a spammer, but hey, so long as I can keep the lightest possible touch, with "forcing" rules and restrictions on people, that's what I'd rather do. Its not a prison, Its a place people go to feel relaxed and play with friends..

Secondly I wanted to throw in that we do allow multiple accounts. But it is for the purpose of role play (we create characters, so you may see a member writing both sides of a conversation (lol), but hey if they want to be creative, i think it's great. What we do -going back to the idea of new registrants getting assigned to groups - is any member who wants to create a second or third account, needs to introduce that new character, at a thread for that. And he/she keeps their real name in their signature (it can be small though...just so that its there). And we haven't done it yet, but I imagine one could create a group called "role-play characters" and so a member's duplicate accounts would have a different colored text for the name. This way a character, as opposed to a member, is easily identifiable. And everyone's happy.

It can really be a BAD thing to have multiple accounts,other than for a specific purpose like that though. For example, at one forum, the manager had three accounts and would log in as someone else to agree with herself, or make it seem she had agreement..and as it turned out , she put that to some rather bad use, tricking people, angering them, causing them to leave (the whole forum died actually) It was about lying, her multiple accounts were. And oh people didn't like that.

So usually multiple accounts are bad.

But if I were you (well, I'd be me)lol, which means I'd feel bad, because I always feel bad if people get ejected or whatever. I'd go talk to the guy and just say "look you cant".I'd treat him like I did our spammer. *thinks* You probably shouldn't take that as advice though, because I'm nice even to downright enemies and sometimes get hurt because of it. So.. if these people are all saying ban him, well .. yea I guess so. Yea, I'd probably risk getting hurt all over again, and just tell him "one ad per customer". If he didn't listen, then delete the new account, but still not punish, and again go "hey! lol come on now! and I'd probably try laughing with him.." Maybe it could work. You see, I'm convinced everyone is capable of "bad", and I know they are all capable of needing and such too...even the need to take care of place they feel they own. That's why I call my spammer a "valued member" and mean it. Maybe he'll remember the kind welcome, and get to be part of a family atmosphere because of it, instead of just being abruptly tossed out, because he tried a little trick (ah, everyone tries little tricks... we do... )(well, not me, I'm pretty good(one might even say flawless, but... oh wait that's not true..

I have noticed that our membership has doubled during May but this is due to my fellow Admin advertising our forum on a TV Blog. Most of the e-mail addresses are g.mail, hotmail or Yahoo.I do check the ISP when most members are on line. However to police the forum 24 hrs is impossible. I have banned about 6 members so far but the e-mail addresses of the new members are not the same as those I have banned. I have done a list of members & email addresses with ISP ( when possible)

Thanks Again for your input

Last edited by cassini on May 27th 2011, 4:34 pm; edited 3 times in total (Reason for editing : correcting spelling)